Gloria Hunniford living in fear as fraudster who impersonated her and stole £120k is still at large

Rip Off Britain star Gloria Hunniford has told how she is living in fear because a fraudster who stole her identity is still on the run.

In August an elderly woman and two other crooks turned up at a Santander bank branch pretending to be Gloria, 76, and two of her close relatives.

The older woman, who had fake ID and stolen bank details, managed to trick the unsuspecting clerk and withdrew £120,000 from the TV presenter’s account.

Still reeling from the theft, Gloria said: “It kind of gets worse for me, the more I find out about it the more ridiculous it is.

“I’ve spoken to the police and everyone in the banks and in the end, she had a driving licence. Her face was on it with all my details written. It was made in an upstairs bedroom or something.”

Gloria, who was speaking at the charity Pinktober Gala, presented by Hard Rock Heals, added: “She is still on the run. I worry that she still has a fake driving licence with my name on it. It was a badly researched scam but it worked. It was disturbing and I feel violated.”

The presenter was taken for £120,000 by this fraudster posing as the star

Student Alan Dowie, 18, from Oxted, Surrey, was given an 18-month suspended prison sentence after admitting his part in the scam at the Croydon North End branch of Santander in South London.

Dowie, who pretended to be Gloria’s grandson, admitted one count of conspiracy to defraud and received an 18-month detention term, suspended for two years.

Personal banker Aysha Davis, who served the trio, told the court she had never heard of Gloria and insisted she had no reason to suspect anything was wrong with the customer’s request.

Davis, 28, said she only realised Gloria was a household name when she later searched for her on Google.

She was accused of being part of the plot but was acquitted by jurors after saying the TV star was “not of my time”.

Police are still hunting the crooks who claimed to be Gloria and her daughter.

Gloria, also a panellist on ITV’s Loose Women, previously told of her fury that bank staff fell for the con – despite the older woman looking nothing like her and the fact her daughter Caron Keating died of cancer in 2004.

Caron Keating died in 2004

She said: “She could at least have bought a wig the same colour as my hair and tried to make it look the part.

“And, sadly, I don’t have a daughter – my daughter died 12 years ago. I do not ­understand how this was allowed to happen at the bank. These were my savings. You expect your money to be safe in a bank but it is not.”

Describing the older fraudster, ­prosecutor Sheilagh Davies had told the Old Bailey: “She looked really nothing like the rather more ­glamorous and better presented Ms Hunniford, which perhaps those who watch TV are familiar with.”

Santander said: “We take fraud extremely seriously and have made significant improvements to our processes to ensure fraudulent activity is prevented again.”